Women.

Why was it that the female gender was so quick to cast each other aside for the sake of a man?

"I hear you and Milo Wentworth were on a date last night," Dixie pried, her tone more than a little bitter.

Tori met Debbie's gaze across their projects. "Did you-"

The woman vigorously shook her head.

"How did you know?" But even as she posed the question, she knew. She knew without the knowing glances the former librarian exchanged with the mayor and Leona.

Investigator McGuire.

Leona was right. The officer wasn't wandering aimlessly around town. He was following her. Everywhere she went.

"He's a very nice-looking young man," Rose offered, her attempts at preventing a disagreement thinly disguised by her honest observation. "I'd go on a date with him, too."

"As Tiffany Ann would have." Georgina cut the end of her hemline with a tiny pair of scissors and continued, "Had she known, she'd have been crushed. Though Cooper Riley would have been fixin' to celebrate."

"He sure was all tore up about Tiffany Ann not coming back to him. He was so sure she would once she graduated." Debbie turned her sign over and raised it up for all to see. "I'm gonna put this in the dining area, closest to the turret on the left."

"Perfect," said Rose.

"Pretty as a picture," Margaret Louise echoed. "Hmmm. Live. Love. Eat Baked Goods . . . couldn't think of a better sentiment for the bakery if I tried."

"The last letter is a wee bit crooked," Dixie offered.

Tori shook her head. Any sympathy she'd had for Dixie regarding her forced retirement from the library was long gone. No one came by that kind of meanness by way of one slight. "I think it's just what that wall needs, Debbie, and it's going to look great."

"Are you sure? Should I redo the last letter?"

"No. It looks wonderful." Tori shot a defiant look in Dixie's direction before focusing on Debbie once again. "Does Cooper have much of a temper?"

"Young Cooper Riley has but two speeds. Lazy and spittin' mad." Georgina rolled up the other pant leg and held it against her tape measure. "Rose, do you remember that time at the school when Cooper's parents had to be called in because he'd tossed a classmate into the trash can for looking at him cross-eyed?"

Rose nodded as a coughlike laugh shook the couch. "I sure do. I was still teaching the kindergarten class and Cooper was in seventh-no, eighth grade. He was always getting in scraps. Mostly with anyone who dared look at his Tiffany Ann."

"They dated that long ago?" Tori asked.

"They didn't start dating until high school. But that didn't stop him from shadowing her every move for years before that," Rose explained. "Once high school rolled around she fell for the same thing all high school girls fall for-a cool car and a body that's finally begun to shed its baby fat. And he created a distraction until she was old enough to be with Milo."

"True. But Tiffany Ann was always hankering to go somewhere," Debbie interjected.

"She wanted to leave Sweet Briar?" Tori knotted the last thread into place and peered down at her completed pillow, a familiar sense of accomplishment spreading through her body.

"No. Never. Tiffany Ann loved this town. She just wanted to be one of the ones who made something of themselves rather than one of the ones who simply existed. She wanted to earn Milo's attention as a woman with goals. A little girl who'd finally grown up." Debbie stood and crossed the room to see Tori's pillow up close. "You did a great job on that. Want to make one for my house?"

"After I make all the costumes for the dress-up trunk, I'd be happy to make you one." Tori handed the pillow to Rose, watched as the elderly woman turned the finished product over and over in her frail hands.

"Beautiful work, Victoria."

"Thank you, Rose."

"Are you still planning on asking the board for permission to turn the storage room into a children's room?" Leona asked, her head bent forward so she could look at Tori over her glasses.

"Absolutely. I make my presentation on Wednesday night."

"Wednesday night?" Dixie asked quickly.

"Wednesday night," Tori repeated as she glanced at her wristwatch. "Which reminds me, I better start heading out. I've got lots to do over the next two days to make my pitch as persuasive as possible."

She pulled her tote bag onto her lap and opened it, placing her sewing tools and pillow inside. "Let me know how you like the tortes."

"I'll walk you out," Rose said as she pulled a plain brown paper-wrapped package from underneath the couch and struggled to her feet beside Tori.

She placed a hand on the woman's sweater-clad wrist. "It's okay, Rose. I can show myself out."

"That wasn't a question either, Victoria," the woman mumbled beneath her breath so only Tori could hear. Though judging by the near tangible pop-up bubble above Leona's head, Rose's mumbling was unsuccessful. Only this time, Tori didn't need the woman's whispered coaching to learn her latest lesson on the ways of the south.

Lesson number four-sentences that sound like questions are usually, in fact, statements.

Debbie jumped up from her reclaimed spot and offered Tori a quick but supportive hug. "I'm glad you came."

"Thank you, Debbie. So am I."

And she was. For the most part. Sure, she would have preferred to have everyone in her corner where Tiffany Ann's murder was concerned, but she'd take the three she had.

"Don't forget to talk to Nina."

"I won't." She squeezed Debbie's hand and then turned to Margaret Louise. "If you're not doing anything Wednesday evening I'd sure love to have you in the audience. I think I could use the moral support."

"And I'd be all-fired-up happy to be there. I'll be sure 'n get supper on the table early that night so I don't miss a minute."

"Thank you, Margaret Louise."

"I'll be there, too," Rose offered after all the good-byes had been exchanged and they were heading toward the front door. "Your children's room is the best idea I've heard in a long time and it would be a fool thing if the board didn't agree."

"I hope you're ri-" Tori looked down at her hands as Rose pushed the brown package into them. "What's this?" she asked as her fingers sunk into the softness of the bundle. "Chocolate?"

"Chocolate, schmocolate. You can make that on your own time." Rose pulled her sweater close against her body as an early autumn breeze swept through the screen door. "Then again, from what I've seen, you could have done a better job on this-if you weren't bogged down with such nonsense."

"What is this?" she asked again, her curiosity piqued.

"You'll find out soon enough." Rose reached around Tori and pushed the screen door open. "But wait until you're on your way. I'm not a fan of gushing and I suspect you're a gusher."

Tori glanced down at the package and back up at Rose. "That wait part-that wasn't a question, was it?"

"No, Victoria, it wasn't."

"I knew that." She stepped onto the porch and stopped. "I had a really nice time tonight. Thank you, Rose."

The woman nodded in reply, her hand pulling the door inward. "Get home safely."

And then she was gone, her thin body disappearing down the very same hallway from which they'd both come. Only this time she was alone, as was Tori. But only in a physical sense.

A good forty years older, Rose was emerging as one of her closest friends in Sweet Briar. A woman who may have been quick to assume at the start yet wasn't afraid of making necessary corrections when the assumption proved wrong.

As her hostess disappeared from view Tori slowly untied the strings of the bundle, the brown paper wrapping coming loose at the same time.

"Oh, Rose," she whispered, her hands drawing the child-sized pioneer dress and matching bonnet into the glow of the porch light. "Lulu is going to love this."

Chapter 14.

She was losing it. Absolutely losing it. How could someone who'd been praised for her organizational skills by every employer she'd ever had suddenly lose everything she needed? How could someone who'd had relatively good luck in her entire life suddenly have an overpowering urge to hang garlic from her neck?

"I don't get it, Nina, I've been staring at these binders every day for the past week. And now, suddenly, they're gone. Poof!" Tori pulled everything off her desk for the umpteenth time in the past hour searching for the presentation she'd spent hours putting together for the library board. "Are you sure you didn't put them somewhere when you were cleaning up in here?"

"You cleaned in here, Miss Sinclair. I tidied the library and set up the chairs for the meeting." Her assistant wrung her hands, her voice a poor disguise for the apprehension she felt in having to correct her boss.

"I'm sorry, Nina. It's not your fault. I can't seem to keep track of anything." She dropped into her office chair and buried her face in her hands. "What am I going to do? I'm going to look like an idiot. A complete and utter idiot."

"How's it going in here, ladies?"

Her head snapped up at the sound of Milo's voice, the overwhelming urge to beg him for a power hug more than a little surprising. "Um, I think rotten would sum up our answer pretty well . . . what do you say, Nina?"

Milo's eyebrows furrowed as Nina shrugged her agreement. "What's wrong?"

"Everything." Tori swiveled her chair and stood looking out the plate glass window into the gathering dusk. "I wanted them to see I'd thought this through, that I had plans to keep the cost to an absolute minimum, and that the idea went way beyond something that looks neat and pretty on the surface."

"Miss Sinclair gathered studies from libraries across the country that have done a similar thing," Nina added, defeat evident in her words as well.

"And?"

"Communities in those areas actually showed an increase in reading scores at the elementary school level."

Tori saw Milo's head shake in the reflection from the window. "And what's changed? Why can't the board see all this?"

"Because I've turned into a walking, talking black hole." Tori slowly turned from the window, her arms clasping one another across her dusty rose sweater set. "First, I nearly miss your classroom's first visit to the library. Why? Because I can't find the appointment book I've been told was virtually nailed to the information desk for forty years. Then, I can find every craft supply known to mankind except the Popsicle sticks I needed in order to make pyramids with your students."

The left corner of Milo's mouth twitched. Followed by the right side.

"What's so funny?" she asked, her hands dropping to her sides.

"You're kind of cute when you're losing it."

She rolled her eyes. "I doubt that."

"Listen. Whether or not you were ready for us that first day or whether you had to get wooden sticks from another source . . . it doesn't change one simple fact. My kids love coming here. Do you know I've been getting a jar of butter every day since? You've single-handedly stymied apple sales across Sweet Briar."

"Don't worry, I'm sure Investigator McGuire will be knocking on my door any minute now to harass me about that as well."

Milo's smile disappeared. "I'm sorry, Tori; I was just trying to lighten the mood. You seem so stressed."

The unmistakable concern in the man's eyes tugged at her heart, made her wish they could slip away to Debbie's Bakery for a break in the insanity. But they couldn't.

"I am stressed. I prepared a binder for each member of the board last week. In them were facts and figures I've compiled as well as plans I have for the children's room I'm proposing. But now"-she gestured toward her desk as her voice broke-"they're gone. Every single one of them."

"Gone?" He strode across the room, his head ducking to look below the desk and then popping up to scan the top. "How could they be gone?"

She threw her hands into the air, exhaling a piece of wavy brown hair from her face. "That is the million-dollar question. Though, quite frankly, I'm growing more and more certain that someone is deliberately trying to sabotage me. I mean, really, what other explanation is there?"

Milo looked from Tori to Nina to the clock hanging on the wall. "Unfortunately, you've only got ten minutes to figure out what you're going to do."

"Ten minutes-oh, Nina, what am I going to do?" Tori nibbled her lower lip inward, her hands beginning to tremble at her sides. "These people are coming to my first meeting as head librarian-a woman they brought down from Chicago only to have her show up on the top of the suspect list in the town's first-ever murder investigation. This was my chance to show them I'm not crazy."

She heard the shrillness of her voice, felt Milo's concern and Nina's pity. And for once in her life she was at a complete loss on how to dig her way out of a mess she hadn't seen coming.

"This idea had nothing to do with Tiffany Ann's murder. You didn't come up with this to show them anything. You came up with this first. Because it's a tremendous idea."

Tori leaned against the desk. "It was."

"It still is." Milo leaned against the desk beside her, his hands curled around its edge. "You don't need a binder with bullet points and numbers to convince them you know what you're doing or that this is going to be a home run for the library."

"Of course I do," she said flatly.

"No, you don't. I didn't have a binder sitting in front of me at Debbie's the other night. I didn't have numbers and studies and projections to cull through. I just had you and your ideas and your excitement." Milo pulled his right hand from the desk, tentatively raised it to her face and brushed a wayward curl from her forehead. "Trust me, if they see what I saw . . . if they hear what I heard . . . you'll get your room."

She closed her eyes as his skin brushed against hers, felt the shiver that began at the place of contact and reverberated through her entire body. Was he right? Could she pull it off simply by talking?

"He's right, Miss Sinclair. You had me imagining the storybook scenes on the wall that first day in the storage room simply by the way you described it. And that was with all those boxes still stacked to the ceiling."

"Just get out there and tell them everything you told me Sunday night." Milo pushed off the edge of the desk and extended his hand to Tori, encircling hers and pulling her to stand. "Forget Tiffany Ann, forget these silly suspicions, forget the next box of lightbulbs you might have to buy."

She grinned. "Have to."

He looked a question at her.

"You mean the next box of lightbulbs I have to buy, Milo."

His mouth fell. "Are you serious?"